What The Hell Has Happened To The Endless-Sphere I Used To Know?

Ever since the beginning of the Storm\Ivars Sondors Electric Bike Campaign there has been a not-so-subtle change on my favorite forum endless-sphere.com, and the change has not been for the better. What used to be a civil discussion platform for people wanting support or to connect with other ebike builders has degenerated into what appears to be just another bad episode of Jerry Springer. Storm\Ivars Sondors has arrived to the ebike scene and sold 7000 promises for a $499\$599 electric fatbike in a few short weeks and the ebike world got turned upside-down.

The factions have divided into two sides, those who think Storm\Ivars is legit and those who think he is a conman. As near as I can tell no one else is welcome in the middle. Those two sides seem to feel that their point of view is the only point of view to be had and both sides refuse to listen to the other. There have been constant insults and negativity hurled from one side to the other which leaves the impartial reader to watch and wonder exactly what the hell is going on.

The forum I’ve been lurking on for the last 8 months was a place where it seemed like anyone was welcome, regardless of their personal views on ebikes. It felt like a place where I was welcome to ask my stupid questions and not be made to feel like a noob. I had a great regard for many of the people on the forums as well as the moderators. It was a place of positive energy where people just wanted to get online to ‘share their stoke’ about ebikes and it felt like everyone was working in the same direction to bring ebiking to the masses.

The rest of the world doesn’t care about what is going on in this thread. They aren’t listening, and frankly it has gotten so hard to read the thread I’ve stopped following it. I’ve gotten so much negative energy from both sides during this campaign that I’m left wondering if Storm\Ivars has unwittingly managed to permanently divide the DIY builder crowd and create tension where there was none before.

Is he a conman or will he bring ebikes to the masses?

If we pull together as a community and decide to support the people who have pledged to the campaign with whatever support they need, that would seem to be the best course of action. Petty rivalry and negativity can only serve to keep us from achieving our goals of promoting ebikes for the masses.

Whether Storm\Ivars and Jon are con-men only time will tell. They have collected the $3.5 million dollars and are well on the way to collecting another $1.5 million more in a week. Whether there are 7000 noobs with ebikes in a few months or whether there are 7000 people who have lost $694\794 in a scam, our course of action remains the same.

10 thoughts on “What The Hell Has Happened To The Endless-Sphere I Used To Know?”

I think the conversation about these guys is a waste of anybody’s time……there will always be naysayers in life and people always judge the book by the cover. So if people would have a “wait and see” attitude nobody would waste their minds on useless things such as these.

I purchased one of these and have been a biking enthusiast all my life. My position is more neutral then negative or positive. Perhaps it would be fair to say I am cautiously optimistic – and the more I’ve seen in recent days and weeks – the more optimistic I am leaning. I for one believe the future will bring more affordability – and more enjoyment and utility to the masses. So I look forward to this working out well. On the other hand I my pitchfork, torch and shotgun ready too – just in case.

The price of the Storm is not out of line with the prices on Alibaba. What Storm has done is make the rest of the world aware of them.
I don’t know if he’s a crook or not. I do believe he is inexperienced and somewhat “in over his head”. I think he has forgotten to figure in some operating expenses, but he will become aware of them as this progresses.
If he fulfills these initial orders, he will have a solid reputation going forward to profit on future sales.

Any person with some experience can tell from the specs they claim and the hardware specs in reality that they are seriously overinflating range, speed on a flat, etc while simultaneously understating weight but that at least has evolved in their specs as times moved on.

The issue many of us on ES have with this “scheme” is simple, when vendors over promise capabilities customers are left unimpressed… At least after the initial, very short (a day?) honeymoon period. The quality is questionable too as the bike itself looks to be thin tube framed, similar to the walmart bikes those of us with some experience know will fail quickly.

The power pack is a freaking joke, that much is self evident.

This is all before production or delivery or lack there of. Personally I don’t think it will materialize or be delivered not because of the people being scammers or “rip off artists” but simply because of poor estimates of costs involved all around by the company. That said, had they stopped funding at 70K perhaps it would have been possible but truly, 7000 EBikes is a huge thing to deliver on and requires massive logistics, man power and warehouse space and who knows if they can pull it off, again at their price point for 7K I just don’t see it coming to fruition.

You of course as anyone on ES is welcome to their opinion but opinions are like aholes and most are uninformed as the lay person who has little or no experience with EBikes, import/export or actual real world specs. After 8 years of building my own EBikes and providing technical consulting to many eBike vendors and builders on ES I think my opinion is an educated one so I stand by it.

Sad part is, no matter if they deliver or not people will be disappointed just like ezip owners and worse because at least ezips don’t over claim their specs and most people are quickly put off by them and their weight, not to mention range and speed.

Personally I wouldn’t be concerned with the storm if it were capped to 70K investment but with 7000 promised (and counting) EBikes I hope everyone realizes how that adds up?

For comparison if January 2014 sales of Chevy volts is 918 units, an annual sales base of roughly 11,000 cars for 2014… But remember that’s a company with infrastructure and experience so 7000+ EBikes from an unknown entity is just plain ridiculous for a company of their size… were this huffy, mongoose or even Schwinn (tail wind?) offering these I’d still believe people would be disappointed but at least I’d believe they could pull off the logistics, but they are known entities like Chevy in the car world.

The whole thing is just a potential powder keg.

To summarize my opinion, I’ve not ordered and will not order one… Even for testing purposes.